The Magician's Tale

After Tim Lovsey, a handsome male prostitute, is found brutally killed and police choose not to pursue the matter, Kay Farrow decides to look into the case herself, and her own life is at risk as she becomes more deeply involved in the underground world of San Francisco's illicit sex trade.

A color-blind photographer searches the dark side of San Francisco for the killer of the street Adonis whose sordid life she'd been documenting. Fifteen years ago, Kay Farrow's father and a quartet of other cops put an end to the city's ``T case''--five young hustlers murdered and beheaded--by recusing the sixth victim before he could be killed too. But the victim ended up dying anyway; all the physical evidence mysteriously vanished from the scene; and four of the five cops ended up, like the unknown killer, getting eased into retirement. Now that Tim Lovsey, the beautiful prostitute Kay had been photographing for months, has been killed and dismembered, Kay can't help wondering what her father will have to say about the case, and how it's connected to his own well-publicized failure. Kay, whose photophobia (she sees only shades of gray, and is blinded by bright light) has made her a creature of the night as well, sets out to take another look at Tim's dark world through wraparound shades and a Contex viewfinder--at least until a bunch of tough guys beat her and steal the camera. She learns that although Tim was repeatedly sought out by opera stars and society types, his first loyalty was to his twin sister Ariane--a twin whose life was bound uncannily to his by David deGeoffroy, the ``uncle'' who trained them both to his vocation in magic, worked with them for years, and then watched them vanish with half his savings. It's an extravagantly promising setup, but the unraveling is a letdown: Kay's three problems (connecting Tim's murder to the T case, fingering the killer, tracking down Ariane) turn out to have all too little to do with each other, and to hold all too few surprises in store. As an exercise in atmosphere, though, Hunt's first novel is as glamorously seedy as a pristine print of a vintage film noir. (First printing of 100,000; $125,000 ad/promo) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Kay Farrow is an achromat. She's completely color blind and only sees the world in black, white, and shades of gray. This doesn't stop her from being a gifted photographer whose bleak and uncompromising pictures show the rougher side of life in San Francisco. Her favorite subjects: hustlers, transsexuals, and prostitutes. She's even developed a romantic friendship with one of her subjects, a beautiful youth named Tim. Then Tim turns up dead, his body mutilated and his head severed, and Kay vows to find out who killed him and why. Her investigation leads her to a years-old murder scandal in which her own father, a retired cop, was involved. Kay also learns that Tim's childhood was spent with a professional magician who taught Tim a repertoire of sinister magic tricks that, years later, have horrifying consequences. Given the big publicity push (100,000-copy first printing) for Hunt's novel, it's likely to wind up generating some demand. But although the story starts out strong, with a promising plot and a megadose of gritty reality, it soon runs out of steam and meanders toward a disappointing conclusion that's nearly as colorless as Kay Farrow's achromatic world. Emily Melton

Kay Farrow is a photographer canvassing the seedy underworld of San Francisco. Colorblind, she shoots only in black and white, but her keen, talented eye makes her work unique. When one of Kay's subjects, a young male prostitute named Tim Lovsey, is murdered, police indifference and a unique ability to capture what others cannot see compels her to pursue the investigation herself. As she digs deeper, Kay discovers similarities to an earlier unsolved murder case in which her father, a former policeman, was involved. Hunt (the pen name of a novelist living on San Francisco's Russian Hill) provides a gritty account of the city's darker side but fails to develop an original plot. The writing is also poor. Not recommended.?John Noel, Tennessee Technical Univ. Lib., Cookeville
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.